Is altruism dead? Can we do things for the sake of others without taking ourselves into account? Is there such a thing as a completely unselfish act? Striving to produce a better world or even simply attempting to improve myself has driven home the question of selflessness lately. Those questions are bubbling up everywhere I look, from the articles I read to the conversations I overhear. One thing is certain: Asking how others are doing is the only way to position myself toward truth, beauty and God.
I got to visit my alma mater this weekend to watch the Fighting Irish take on Michigan State. I had a few hours to walk the Notre Dame campus, buy a few things, and remind myself of things that once were meaningful. This time on campus synthesized a period of time in my current consciousness that is looking for answers, much like the period in my life that took me to graduate school. Through a series of accidents and contemplations, I have been tested to find out what altruism looks like.
A couple days before heading to South Bend, I attended a workshop that transformed my thinking about leadership. We tend to think that you’re either born with the knack for leadership or you’re not. But leadership traits and characteristics can and ought to be learned. Sometimes those habits come easily and sometimes, as in my case, they are harder to absorb. What I learned is that leadership is more about learning from those you’re leading than it is about you. Getting to know what is important to others – and listening – is far more altruistic than leading for your own selfish reasons.
At the game, I realized you hear the most interesting conversations while waiting in line for the bathroom. So it was for me as I tuned in to the two college students, one asking the other: “So you don’t think you can make a completely selfless act? Does that mean there is no good in the world?” Ahhh. To be young again. I remember having such “serious” debates in school where I felt that if we could just answer this ONE major question, we could solve all of the world’s problems. Looking back, perhaps I was right. After all, if the same questions are being asked by the same students thirty years later, maybe there is something more meaningful attached to the need to answer the question: Why is it important to help others? These young kids were stumped. Or maybe I didn’t hear the answer. Besides, it was my turn in line and some philosophical answers are not meant to be heard from others but meant to be solved on our own.
For me, I didn’t need to hear the end of the debate because I already had the answer ruminating in me. Before the game started, I headed to the grotto. It’s a sacred space just behind the basilica. There, one can sit and pray, light a candle or just rest in quiet serenity. It’s a peaceful place. I lit a candle and, as always, they appeared: my sage, my guide, my mothers. It became abundantly clear that this world – who I think I am, what I think I want, and all of the challenges I think I face – is not about me. The world, peace and love are much bigger than any one man. They are too big to whittle down to whether I think a decision is a good one or a bad one or how it affects me. No. This world is too big for me. And if it is too big, then who am I but a mirror of the force that takes me with it? I am but a vessel to help move the love and stream of consciousness along.
Though I truly don’t know what that means, I do know that altruism isn’t even about the other person. It is about living with God. To act solely on the premise that your actions affect either just yourself or somebody else misses the point entirely. You’re not on this earth to act in a way that benefits you. Nor are you on this earth to “help” somebody else because it may or may not actually benefit you. You are on this earth to reach the highest version of yourself and help others reach the highest version of mankind that they have in them. That’s why pride, avarice, jealousy, wrath and sloth are so insidious –because they take away. They subtract from the highest expression and potential that you can manifest. It is not just through acts of kindness that we define altruism. It is the care and love we put into others.
Javier Sanchez is the former Mayor of Espanola, an independent businessman, and El Rito Media investor and columnist.
